MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – Tokyo Electric Power Company has vowed that the weed-choked northern Fukushima Prefecture will restore its role as the country’s energy supplier after the construction of a clean-coal power plant.
“As already mentioned in the said business plan, the reconstruction of Fukushima is a top priority for us to address, and we are aiming to position Fukushima prefecture as a base for clean coal technologies to lead the world in this domain,” TEPCO said in an announcement earlier.
Now the Japanese nuclear power plant operator is planning to build what it calls the world’s most efficient coal gasification plant on the seaside north of Hirono, a former miner town 17 miles south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi NPP.
The mayor of Hirono hopes the new technology will help breathe life into the city by creating jobs and boosting the regional economy in the wake of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactors’ subsequent meltdown that prompted evacuation of some 300,000 from the disaster area.
The meltdown at the Fukushima power plant was the second-largest nuclear disaster in history after the Chernobyl catastrophe.
